We hit the ground running yesterday! The techs at Duncan RV Repair were supposed to start working on our motorhome at 9 a.m., so Miss Terry had the alarm clock set for 7:30 so we’d have time to get our morning routine done and have the Winnebago unplugged from shore power, the slides in, and the jacks up when they came for it.

Terry was up before me, and when I rolled out of bed, I glanced at my cell phone and it said the time was 8:41 a.m. I asked Terry why she had let me sleep so late, and then we realized that while we had adjusted the clocks on our microwave, computers, and in the van back to Eastern Time, we had forgotten the alarm clock!

What followed was a mad rush to brush teeth, get dressed, store things away inside the motorhome, run outside to unplug the electrical cord, and get the slides in and the jacks up, but we were done at exactly 9 a.m. Whew! What a way to start the day! But we were right on schedule.

Of course, then we waited. And waited. Finally about 9:30 I went inside and was told that the employees were in a meeting and should be done soon. A tech broke free and came out to get our keys, and when we left a little before 10, they still had not moved the RV inside. Hurry up and wait, just like in the Army. Oh well, at least I got an extra hour or so of sleep!

We drove over to Phoenix Commercial Paint and spent the day piddling around the bus, charging the batteries to compensate for the time the bus has been sitting unused, and then starting it up to warm up the engine.

We took a break about 1 p.m. for lunch with our friend Michele Henry, owner of Phoenix Commercial Paint, and when we came out of the restaurant it was snowing! Being anywhere it is snowing goes completely against the very carefully laid out plan I have for my life. I was supposed to be on a houseboat in Key West right now!

Back at Duncan RV Repair, late in the day, they did not have everything finished on the motorhome, which I had expected, since we needed several things done.  That was one reason we got to town early, so they could have two days to work on it, if needed. They had repaired the water heater, so that it now works on both gas and electric, and had completed the engine oil change, lube job, and fuel filter replacement.

They were closing for the day, so our service tech moved the motorhome back out to their campground, and today it will go back into the shop to have the Wilson Trucker antenna installed and the Onan generator serviced.

Today is going to be another busy day for us. We have to pick up a new order of our Just A Gypsy T-shirts from our screen printer here in Elkhart, and then touch base with Al Hesselbart from the RV Hall of Fame Museum. We had arranged for our mail forwarding service to send our mail to us, care of the museum. Then we have to unload our bicycles and kayaks from the van to have room for passengers, and at 4:46 p.m. we have to be at the airport in South Bend, Indiana to met Rich Perry, who is flying in from California with a friend to pick up the bus.

We’re going to be sorry to see that old gal go, she sure has been good to us!    

Thought For The Day – Can we all just agree to ignore whatever comes after Blue Ray? I don’t want to have to restart my collection all over again.

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Yesterday morning we were up and getting the bus ready to travel a couple of hours before we are normally even out of bed. We had a short driving day planned, only 150 miles from Elkhart, Indiana to Muskegon, Michigan. We never pull out of a campground before 10 a.m., because we prefer to let the morning rush hour traffic get over with, though Elkhart doesn’t have much of a rush hour anyway. 

But, things don’t always go as we plan, do they? We have a set routine we follow when we are traveling; while Terry stows things away inside the bus, I check our oil and water, give the engine compartment a quick inspection to be sure the motor is still where I left it, then unhook our utilities, stow our TV dish, and scan the bus and van tires with our PressurePro tire monitoring system to be sure of proper inflation.

With all of that done, we hook up the van to our Blue Ox tow bar, disengage the Remco driveshaft disconnect, and do a brake light and turn signal check to be sure everything is working properly. The whole procedure only takes a few minutes, and while we used a printed pre-trip checklist in our early days, after ten years of fulltiming, we have it down to memory.

As I was checking things inside our engine compartment, I spotted green antifreeze dripping from a short three inch diameter hose that carries radiator fluid to the engine. Since we were parked on grass, there had not been a puddle to notice before. Closer inspection revealed a hole in the hose.

We carry a few spare parts with us, as all seasoned bus nuts do, so we happened to have some extra hose of the same diameter in one of our storage bays. We put a bucket under the hose to catch as much fluid as possible, and replaced the bad one with new, then refilled the radiator.

The entire process wasn’t that hard, even for someone as inept of a mechanic as myself. (Let’s be honest, Miss Terry did most of the work while I tried to look busy in case anybody wandered by.)

With all of that done, we cleaned up (in case you have never been around a bus conversion, all you have to do is open the engine bay doors and grease and oil jump out and cling to you), made a stop at the dump station, and pulled out of Elkhart Campground about 11:30 a.m.

This just illustrates how important it is to do a pre-trip inspection every day when you are traveling. You never know what minor problem is just waiting to become a major problem once you’re on the highway. While it was aggravating to lose 90 minutes of traveling time and get all dirty replacing the hose, it was still a lot easier than trying to replace a hose on a hot engine while broken down on the shoulder of the highway, or waiting for our roadside service company to send out a tow truck.

We had a short nineteen mile trip west on the Indiana Toll Road to South Bend, where we picked up U.S. Highway 31 and followed it north 130 miles to Muskegon. We have a week’s reservations at Fisherman’s Landing, a city owned RV park and marina, and we plan to spend the time visiting family here, and maybe we’ll even get our kayaks in the water!

Thought For The Day – It’s hard to make a comeback when you haven’t been anywhere.

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